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February 26, 2015

This should be common knowledge. If only one side of a negotiation wants a deal, then he/she is going to pay dearly. There's even a joke about it: If you want it badly, you'll get it badly.

This brings us to Kerry and Obama's excellent adventure. While they pursue a deal which they hope will delay for a while Iran's development of a nuclear bomb, Iran is already flexing its muscles and generally thumbing its nose at the U.S.

February 22, 2015

A fantastic program aired last night on C-Span. It was the video of Bill Whittle speaking before the The Conservative Forum of Silicon Valley about how to communicate with the young about conservatism.

We don't run across people like Whittle often. He's smart, and he has a knack for explaining complex topics in a manner that everyone can understand. If he had been a teacher he would be remembered by his students years later as the best, or one of the best, teachers they had.

The topic that night was Political Messaging For Youth. TV shows like "The Family Guy" are popular with young people, but -- "it is a message of collectivism and envy and bitterness and hopelessness and entitlement." The message becomes so prevalent in our culture that it becomes embedded in our brains.

He tells the audience that progressives have mastered the art of the story and making villains of their political opponents. We saw that in the election of 2012. Exit polling revealed that voters agreed with Mit Romney on every question except the one asking who did the voters believe cared most about them. Democrats had made a villain out of him.

Conservatives can put out reams of statistics about how bad socialism is and how providing an environment where people can maximize opportunities is better for everyone. But all progressives have to do is put out one good story about how some sympathetic individual was harmed by the awful insurance companies and how they will benefit from Obamacare, and conservatives lose. Conservatives need to learn the power of the story.

Anyway, Whittle had plenty of stories, and his message is one worth listening to.

February 11, 2015

The Tea Party phenomenon popped up shortly after President Obama launched into his first year of transforming the country. They took to the parks with their ultra clean rallies, and advocated for small government. Democrats didn't like them. The liberal media didn't like them. And many Republicans didn't like them. In most respects, the feelings were mutual.

Now that the Republican Party is in an ascendancy it's always nice to see an honest assessment. Jay Cost provided a little history. The Republican Party started as the party opposed to slavery. After the Civil War, they focused on ending the patronage system and implementing the civil service system. Following that, the party became the party of business.

Jay Cost:

As I argue in my new book, “A Republic No More: Big Government and the Rise of American Political Corruption,” Republican Party leaders came to view the interests of the country and the interests of its largest businesses as one and the same. For advocating this position so effectively (often winning elections despite public opposition to their policies), party leaders were showered with campaign cash, and many acquired vast personal fortunes.

Hardly anybody remembers Gilded Age Republican leaders like Nelson Aldrich, James Blaine, and Matthew Quay, but the choices they made at the end of the nineteenth century remain hugely consequential to today’s GOP. Their view that business interest and the national interest are one and the same is an ideal that many in the party, particularly its upper quarters, still hold dear.

It is not hard to see why small government conservatives would align themselves with pro-business Republicans. There is a lot of overlap in the worldviews. Conservatives believe in the free market as society’s real progressive force, and have always opposed the Democratic Party’s expansive regulatory ambitions. Meanwhile, businesses do not want regulation, at least of themselves. Similarly, conservatives want to reduce the overall tax burden on society, and businesses want their taxes cut, too.

But the two factions were never identical. They were always in an alliance, based on shared goals, conditioned by the broader political climate. Recent developments have strained the relationship.

Indeed they have. Big businesses have profited from subsidies and tax breaks that fall under the name of corporate cronyism. And taxpayers keep funding them. But a new breed of Republicans have gotten into office, Republicans who genuinely do favor small government. That's an encouraging trend, but we'll have to wait and see which faction prevails on election day.

Meanwhile, I would re-title Mr. Cost's article, "The Establishment Branch of the Republican Party Is Not Your Friend."

January 29, 2015

A successful negotiation would result in your giving up the least to get what you want. And one of the necessary factors is determining how badly the other party wants what you have but concealing how badly you want what they have. So we get phrases like, "holding your cards close to the vest" and "poker face" -- terms from gambling applied to everyday negotiations.

Someone who is easy to read is likely to be an easy mark. Thus when President Obama makes no secret of what he wants -- normalized relations with Cuba, a deal with Iran that makes him look good -- he is weak on tactics.

Take Cuba. Obama wants normalized relations and announces that he's going to normalize relations. So what does Raul Castro do? He starts making demands. Specifically:

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — Cuban President Raul Castro demanded on Wednesday that the United States return the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, lift the half-century trade embargo on Cuba and compensate his country for damages before the two nations re-establish normal relations.

Maybe President Cruz will tell the Castro brothers to go jump in a lagoon.

Meanwhile, Iran wants relaxed sanctions. The West wants restrictions strong enough to block any production of a nuclear weapon. President Obama wants a deal with Iran, and his poker face suggests that making a deal is more important than what's in the deal.

The rulers of Iran, for their part, are likely to give him a deal he can boast about, but there will be enough leeway for them to continue pursuit of the nuclear bomb.

Obama is hoping to repeat with Iran the success he had with Cuba. The Iranians are hoping the same thing.

George Costanza was the character played by Jason Alexander in the "Seinfeld" TV series. The reruns of the series are continual, so they're hard to miss. The Costanza character was a good one, and Alexander's portrayal of him was superb. Alexander may have been the best actor on that series.

Costanza's main objective throughout the series was to get laid. That wasn't easy for a bald guy with no money, no job, and who lived with his parents. But he did it. And when he did get into a relationship, his new goal became getting out of it.

Actually, Bill Clinton would make a better comparison with George Costanza. They both wanted desperately to get laid. And once they scored, they became weasels to get out of the trouble it caused.

Clinton: "I did not have sex with that woman ...".

Costanza: "Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I tell ya I gotta plead ignorance... ."

Hillary is better compared with Izzy Mandlebaum, the egotistical, over the hill athlete who was in complete denial about any infirmity.

Or maybe Hillary is more like Newman -- government employee, self centered, uncaring, conniving, vindictive. Yeah, Newman's more her speed.

January 06, 2015

That sounds a bit on the high side. I believe it was Bill Clinton who started or at least championed the idea that abortions should be legal and rare. So much for rare.

Some of my conservatives friends point out how hypocritical Democrats are on this. Democrats claim so many things are "for the children," but a baby in the womb seems not to qualify. The conservatives have a point.

Here's another thing. Democrat politicians trumpet their pro abortion creds with their children near by -- Wendy Davis springs to mind. I can't help but wonder what a child listening to that must think. Maybe there's a Festivus card for that: "You're a sorry excuse for a mother, but at least you didn't abort me!"

December 22, 2014

Democrats were for the removal of Saddam Hussein before they were against it.

But let's suppose the Iraq war didn't happen, and Saddam Hussein remained in control to this day. To watch Barack Obama try to friend dictators and appease potentates is rather troublesome to most of us, but it happens nonetheless. We saw him work at making a deal with Iran as if having made a deal is the only thing that matters. Terms of the deal weren't relevant.

We watch as Obama moves to normalize relations with Cuba. That the country is still controlled by the iron grip of communism and the Castro brothers is a minor inconvenience.

He pulled troops out of Iraq, and that opened the door for ISIS. So what? He got the U.S. out of Iraq. Consequences don't matter.

Let's speculate. Saddam was working hard in the shadows to get the sanctions removed. He had some underhanded ways of getting cooperation from people in high places, and he was making progress.

Does anyone think Obama could have held out? Hussein would have prevailed, and today Americans would be worrying about Iraq's reconstituted nuclear weapons program.

Obama has a weakness for dictators. It would take a shrink like Charles Krauthammer to properly diagnose the problem, but it looks like a case of envy to this lay person.

November 06, 2014

U.S. Representative for Texas District 11, Mike Conaway, cruised to victory on Tuesday. And Wednesday morning he was on a Midland, Texas, radio station boasting about getting over 90% of the vote.

His opponent was Libertarian Ryan Lange, and although Lange was virtually invisible during the campaign, perhaps because he raised zero dollars , he must be some kinda of super political powerhouse. Why else would donors dump almost $2 million into Conaway's campaign chest for this election?

Conaway's donors really must be dumb. Or maybe they're smart and just know how to play the game for more corporate welfare. Let's revisit one of Mr. Conaway's pet causes, the Farm Bill. Here's Bloomberg.com:

A record U.S. harvest has pushed crop prices so low that taxpayers may pay billions of dollars more to subsidize farmers than anticipated just months ago, thanks in part to changes Congress approved this year.

Lawmakers passed a five-year farm law in February and hailed its projected savings in subsidies of $14 billion over a decade. The forecast was based on farmers getting paid more for their crops. Instead, prices have fallen and may trigger subsidies the law aimed to reduce.

“This was a bill based on false premises of fake savings,” said Josh Sewell, a policy analyst with Taxpayers for Common Sense in Washington. “The prices Congress used to calculate the bill’s cost were divorced from reality.”

The bill, one of the few bipartisan measures Congress passed this year, could end up costing taxpayers billions of dollars more than expected after legislators bet commodity prices would stay high and states would end programs that qualified them for higher food stamp spending.

Gee. A government program that costs way more than promised. Either they didn't anticipated that or they did and foisted it on us with a lie. Either way, it's a good argument that government should just quit meddling with business with their relentless rewards and punishments.

Meanwhile, Mr. Conaway is angling for chairmanship of the Agriculture Committee. He was steadfastly against George W. Bush's efforts to reform corporate farm subsidies, so if he gets the chairmanship it will likely be business a usual.

October 30, 2014

The Clintons have been friends with Wall Street for ages, and the Clintons are now tapping that source of funds to finance Hillary's campaign as well as fatten the Clinton nest egg. The Wall Streeters are motivated by the need to insure their own protection as a wave of populism takes over the Democrat base.

To this group of Democrat voters, corporations, businesses and bosses are selfish meanies who are too stingy to share the wealth with the workers who made them what they are. Obama and Elizabeth Warren know this voting bloc well, and they're good at telling them what they want to hear.

For these Dems, the fulcrum isn’t the “radical middle” successfully sought out by Hillary’s husband, President Bill Clinton, in the 1990s, but an array of radical interest groups, public-employee unions, environmentalists and other assorted dingbats, joined in support of extremist policies and politics.

The details of their credo are as stupid as Hillary’s comment: Small businesses can easily pay for big hikes in the minimum wage; large corporations are keeping money and hiring overseas because they’re simply unpatriotic (it has nothing to do with high US corporate taxes); ObamaCare is working great.

The Wall Street fat cats think they're buying exemptions with their donations and speaking fees. But Gasparino cautions them to beware. Hillary will have issued a lot of IOUs to extremist groups before it's all over. And the Obama/Warren school of economic thought will be hard for Hillary to counter should she become president.

October 26, 2014

The morning paper published an article in the print edition the other day from New York Times' partner, Texas Tribune, titled Analysis: A Missing Piece in the Voter ID Debate in which Ross Ramsey says that a half million Texas registered voters "did not have the credentials needed to cast ballots under the new requirement."

The requirements do present a roadblock to those without the underlying documentation. I know that first hand from having helped an elderly individual whose driver's license had expired get a Texas photo ID. But we got it. And there are bound to be others in that category. But half a million? That seems like a stretch.

So maybe there's something missing from the Tribune article. Specifically, how many of those registered voters are actually U.S. citizens?

In the state of Texas a juror must be a U.S. citizen. It's possible that many non-citizens get called for jury duty, and therefore, before a jury panel is selected all the prospective jurors are invited to go tell the judge if they are ineligible, non-citizenship being one of the accepted excuses. It's their responsibility to report their ineligibility to the judge. But the fact that this procedure is part of jury duty tells us there must have been many instances in which in non-citizens got called in for jury duty. That tells us that the government records haven't weeded them out. Could they have gotten the jury summons because they were registered voters?

WashingtonPost.com may have an answer. See Could non-citizens decide the November election? There, Jesse Richman and David Earnest provided some educated speculation that non-citizen voters, who generally vote Democrat, could have swayed some close elections.

So before dumping the Texas voter ID laws based on what the Texas Tribune reports, let's add a step and ascertain whether those people without IDs are American citizens.

I used to enjoy his TV show on CNBC before it ended. But he's still around and still the optimist. Here's one of his latest missives at Washingtonexaminer.com: The optimistic GOP story everyone is missing. What they're missing is this:

The idea that nothing much will change if the GOP captures the whole Congress is just plain wrong. The politics and policies in Washington are about to change in a major way.

Obama may still be president. But he is going to be immediately confronted with a flood of new bills that will change the debate on tax reform, energy, health care, education, international trade and regulations. ...

Obama's head will spin with all the new paperwork on his desk. He may even have to cut back on his golf game.

Of course, because of his left-wing ideology, Obama may veto everything. But if he does, he's setting up a new Republican agenda for the 2016 presidential race. Either Hillary Clinton completely jumps the Obama ship, or she's pulled way left by the Democratic party's Bill de Blasio/Elizabeth Warren/Sandinista wing. Either way she's in trouble.

So is a Republican win in the Senate a done deal? We should wait til the votes are counted -- Obama's minions have a way of pulling votes out of the woodwork in close elections. But if Republicans do win then maybe, just maybe, they can slow down the momentum toward socialism and steer the country toward a smaller government with fewer regulations and an honest tax system.

A Karl Marx piggy bank sold at Urban Outfitters. The 2014 Sochi Olympics. Thomas Piketty’s book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century." The lefty love affair with Cuba. Che-Guevara T-shirts. Theonion.com. [I can't vouch for this one.] Dennis Rodman chumming it up with Kim Jong-un. Celebrities in general. Vlad Putin's Western admirers. Socialist protesters every time there's a gathering of protesters.

While it's nice to see Buzzfeed display an article mocking communist sympathizers, they did deny any endorsement by their editorial staff, so that's a bit more in line with what we might expect.

October 19, 2014

Clarice Feldman writes what many have been saying for several years. President Obama sees himself as a citizen of the world first and foremost. See Obama: Our House is Your House. Excerpt:

The problem with voting into the presidency an internationalist is that his oath to “protect and defend” the Constitution (and by implication the nation) doesn’t apply to this nation. He sees it as his duty to protect and defend some undifferentiated poor folks in the Third World. You suckers just pay the bills and suffer the consequences of his actions.

Proof is overwhelming that this represents Obama’s mindset. This week is no exception. From a review of the expenditures made by this administration with tax revenues meant to protect our health and safety and his immigration policies, we can see yet again where he’s coming from.

What would happen if a speaker at a tea party rally said Democrats have trouble getting up early enough to go vote? Don't answer. We all know. The race card has been played so many times you can see it coming a mile away.

October 16, 2014

Ann Coulter has a knack for nailing progressive hypocrisy, and she's done it again with President Obama's unwillingness to prohibit passenger flights from Ebola stricken regions. He seemed so eager to ban flights to Israel back when they disagreed with Mr. Obama on a cease fire. But when it comes to choosing between protecting Americans and maintaining political correctness toward an African nation, he picks political correctness.

It’s becoming increasingly clear this is just another platform for Obama to demonstrate that we are citizens of the world. The entire Ebola issue is being discussed — by our government, not the United Nations — as if Liberians are indistinguishable from Americans, and U.S. taxpayers should be willing to pay whatever it takes to save them.

Maybe we should give them the vote, too! If Ebola was concentrated in Finland and Norway — certainly Israel! — we’d have had a travel ban on Day One.

And there's this interesting observation:

What is it with liberals living in gated communities always telling us that fences don’t work? THAT’S WHAT A QUARANTINE IS.

Ann Coulter sure does have their number. No wonder she's the perennial progressive bogeyman.

October 15, 2014

That's an easy question for anyone who reads the newspaper. It's the government. Take a look at the headline in the photo.

Even millennials are wising up about the inability of government planning committees to run industries. But you can't keep the old pols down. We've got the basic driving forces: the need for food, clothing and shelter. Right up there with them are the twins: The desire for governments to control the economy and reach by citizens for government handouts. It defies party boundaries.

October 07, 2014

The Brits and Yanks saved France in WWII, and France hates them. That's a weird psychological phenomenon that makes some people resent those who do them a favor they can't repay. And it appears to be happening with Obama and the press.

The first reaction is that Obama should love the press. But on reflection, maybe Risen is onto something. Risen is under a threat from the Department of Justice for refusing to disclose a leak source. And perhaps a bit of paranoia as well as self preservation makes him want to attribute the pressure he's getting to hatred of his industry. But maybe Obama really does hate the press.

The mainstream media is largely responsible for putting Obama into the White House. They built him up, hid his weaknesses, and carried his water. Many people saw through this fraud, but a majority of voters didn't.

Obama owes the media big time. And like the debtor who can't pay back his lenders, he resents them for it.

September 30, 2014

Nationalreview.com writer Kevin D. Williamson doesn't mince words. He thinks modern day liberalism wants to silence dissenters with the threat of prison. First, see The Liberal Gulag where he says this:

The Left is calling on people to be prosecuted for speaking their minds regarding their beliefs on an important public-policy question that is, as a political matter, the subject of hot dispute. That is the stuff of Soviet repression.

But then Soviet-style repression has long been a dream of the American Left. Consider the abuses of psychiatry that were the great hallmark of the Soviet way, and then consider that there is a cottage industry today among left-wing psychiatrists arguing that conservative political views represent a form of mental disorder.

Next see the followup article, The Liberal Gulag, Again where he provides more examples of the liberal left betraying the beliefs of those who believe in freedom from repression. To wit:

As in the case of Mr. Weinstein, I am open to the argument that in a sane world Mr. Kennedy would not be taken seriously, inasmuch as he is a witless pile of ground chuck molded into the shape of a politician, but we do not live in a sane world. We live in this world, one in which Senate Democrats are working feverishly to repeal the First Amendment while Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gleefully contemplates the prospect of building prison camps for political dissidents.

That is what you are voting for when you vote Democratic. If you are uncomfortable with that, then you should reconsider your affiliations. If you are not uncomfortable with that, then you have failed as a human being, but you should at least have the courage of your convictions and be as forthright as possible that you want to imprison people for thought crimes and political disagreement.

Mr. Williamson uses the word "liberal" when referring to lefties. However, lefties have moved on to "progressive," probably because they like the sound of it better. That's just as well because their present day beliefs are very much at odds with classical liberalism.

September 17, 2014

"Eric holder is the worst attorney general since Mitchell under Nixon which, to most veterans of the department, will tell you they consider to be the nadir of the justice department." That was Hans von Spakovsky quoting someone from the Clinton administration -- hear it at around 13:30 in this C-Span video.

There was the Marc Rich pardon, the New Black Panther voter intimidation case, Operation Fast and Furious, the IRS scandal, and more. This Attorney General represents all that can be wrong with a law enforcement agency, and unfortunately, it's the highest law enforcement agency in the country. It is a very bad thing when they don't follow the law.

About a third of respondents didn’t know who Mr. Holder is (37 percent). However, those Americans who knew Mr. Holder gave him the second-lowest “positive” rating of anyone or any organization on the survey at a mere 15 percent. Only Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio had a lower “positive” rating than Mr. Holder. The attorney general’s “positive” rating was less than half of the positive rating of the Republican Party and 27 points behind that of his boss, Mr. Obama, who was rated favorably by only 42 percent of respondents.

They're optimistic:

Contrary to what liberal elites think, the average American isn’t dumb and can see when someone is abusing his office and allowing politics to drive his decision-making. They may think they can fool the American people, but that is a mistake that many arrogant politicians and government officials have made in the past, and Mr. Holder is just another in a long line of such government officials.

Is that wishful thinking? Team Obama has done a pretty good job of fooling the American people up til now. But maybe people are finally waking up.

September 04, 2014

This is one of the reasons why many people who vote for Republicans secretly hate them. The Democrat's claim that the Republican Party is the party of the rich is partly true, and it's drilled home when fat cats get corporate welfare.

Our own US Representative for Texas District 11 usually gets about 80% of the primary vote and about the same in the general election. He tells voters what they want to hear, he gets tons of free publicity from the local media, and he gets a million dollars per campaign season from interested parties. It's almost impossible to unseat an incumbent. The impossible has happened, but it won't happen here. By the way, he hates the idea of term limits.

But this isn't a rant about Agriculture Committee member and aspiring chairman, Mike Conaway. The subject here is an old one: Sugar and the way the Agriculture Committee allows the continuation of a depression era mechanism whereby the US pays millions of dollars each year to subsidize sugar producers and keep sugar prices high.

It works like this: As I have argued here before, the United States does not have a government — it has a bank, and a very poorly run bank at that. The Bank of Uncle Stupid last year lent the nation’s poor, struggling sugar barons $862 million in order to improve their positively Dickensian conditions. With the fat harvest coming in, sugar prices are going down — and the public must, at all costs, be protected from low prices. If sugar prices take just another tiny little tick in a southerly direction, then an unusual provision built into the sugar barons’ loan agreements with the federal government kicks in: They don’t have to repay their loans in cash — they can repay them in raw sugar.

The government then sells that sugar at a steep discount to the ethanol industry which is responsible for such terrible ideas as the requirement that it be pumped it into our vehicle gas tanks.

Williamson ends with this:

Needless to say, your traditional brain-dead Chamber of Commerce–type useless Republican clock-puncher loves this stuff. So does Marco Rubio. If the so-called party of free enterprise cannot figure out a way to run against this kind of pillaging, then they do not deserve to win.

Here's an idea for a campaign slogan: Republicans! You'll get your money's worth!

By the way, the government caused high consumer price of sugar may be why food producers have replaced sugar with high fructose corn syrup. Yum!

“The world’s always been messy ... we’re just noticing now in part because of social media,” he said, according to a White House pool report.

The president, looking to strike a reassuring tone, argued that American military superiority has never been greater and that the U.S. still held advantages over potential international rivals like China.

Barack Obama is our Chauncey Gardener. that's the character Peter Sellers made famous in the movie Being There. Chance was a gardener who somehow became the darling of the political class with his banal remarks about gardening which the in-crowd took as deeply thought out metaphors. He was a blank slate on whom they drew an image based on their own expectations. Remind you of anyone?

Hey, lookie here. Being There is being aired on TCM this Wednesday (9/3/2014) at 7:00 PM CST. How timely.

That has always been a riddle. But looking at our own Texas District 11 we can see how that happens. Representative Mike Conaway has been a consistent and enthusiastic cheerleader for farm bill pork. But he placates the constituents with remarks about immigration and other hot button issues.

Apparently, all it takes is for an incumbent to satisfy the voters on the issues that are in the headlines, and he gets a pass on everything else. Add to that voters' fear of change. Further add to that the massive amount of free advertising he gets from the local media. We should probably also add in the boatload of money the lobbyists and special interest groups drop at his doorstep.

July 31, 2014

Obama got a majority of the votes in the large Texas urban areas. And as unpopular as he is among most Texans, those urban areas are home to many who might follow an Obama recommendation. With Obama campaigning for Davis, those people, plus a few million who haven't yet registered to vote, will hand her the governorship, or so the theory goes.

Is he right? To most Texans President Obama is the worst president the country has had since they were old enough to know what a president is. But Mr. Sanders points to the demographics of those urban areas -- African American and Hispanic -- and assumes Wendy Davis will not able to make the case herself but that those voters would act on an Obama recommendation.

Since many of Obama's voters voted for him because of his skin color, it's questionable whether the Obama magic would rub off on a white blond lady. But it's fun to speculate. Which is larger: the number voters Obama would draw or the number of voters Obama would repel?

Wendy is probably right on this one thing. She's better off without him.

This unique combination of values and beliefs is the reason the millennial generation is politically unclaimed. Jaded by hypocrisy in both parties, millennials are far more independent than their older counterparts. Given their social liberalism, fiscal moderation, and underlying philosophical pre-disposition to support meritocratic policies and individual autonomy, they have the potential to become one of the most liberty-friendly generations ever as they get older.

That's a bold statement: "...the potential to become one of the most liberty-friendly generations ever as they get older." They'd better grow up quickly if they want to keep that liberty.

One prominent liberal is boasting that this is proof that the GOP is dead. Maybe, maybe not. But currently their only alternative is the Democrat party, and social tolerance without fiscal discipline isn't going to save the country from financial ruin.

July 13, 2014

A super smart friend of mine always rolls his eyes whenever I try to talk about someone being not so knowledgeable, so I'll just let Mollie Hemingway do it this time. She generalizes a bit, but she primarily targets a few high profile liberal writers. Read it at Media Ignorance Is Becoming A Serious Problem.

I don’t mean to pick on Carter, who was a good sport. If anything, I give him credit for sticking through the entire interview [with Hugh Hewitt]. But it speaks to a larger problem we face with our media, which is that they frequently are not well read and, more importantly, they do not realize it. ...

Remember how President Reagan once quipped, “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so”? Yeah, well, I think the ignorance may be turning into a problem.

Yes it is. The problem really shows when the electorate reflects that same ignorance.

“The Obamas believe that Warren sees things from the same ideological point of view as they do. She is a committed progressive who, like Obama, wants to transform America into a European-style democratic-socialist state.”

[Aside: Do they really talk like that? Conservatives have long believed Obama wants to turn the country into a "socialist state," although the model is probably more South America than European. But do progressives actually come out and say it? It wasn't too long ago that calling Obama a socialist was a no-no. If it's OK now I didn't get the memo.]

More:

“Both Valerie and Michelle Obama have convinced the president that Elizabeth Warren is his Mini-Me,” said a person who has discussed the issue with Jarrett.

Lots of unnamed sources in there, and Klein could be getting played. But it's fun to speculate.

June 15, 2014

There was a TV drama in 2012 called Political Animals about a former first lady serving as Secretary of State. By the way, her ex-husband, the ex-president, had a reputation as a womanizer and brilliant political strategist.

Sound familiar? To those of us not in camp Hillary it looked like an attempt by show biz biggies to make that fictional Hillary Clinton look like the greatest thing for our country since Windows 8.

There was only one season of the show, and it ended with lots of questions in the air about whether she would run for president. I suppose they're waiting to see whether Hillary will run. If she doesn't, that'll be the end of "Political Animals."

But wait. What's this? Madam Secretary -- a different cast and crew, but with a lovable and efficient Secretary of State. They don't miss a beat. If "Political Animals" didn't do its job, you can be sure "Madam Secretary" will do it's best to get get this fictional multi-tasking Super Secretary imprinted in the minds of impressionable voters.

June 12, 2014

Dave Brat beat Eric Cantor in the Virginia Republican Primary -- a remarkable event. It's very difficult to unseat an incumbent in any case. The Republican establishment is so established that it is indeed remarkable that a challenger could do it. There's no shortage of articles attempting to explain why. But the Daily Caller's Christopher Bedford has a different take. See The Media Is Missing The Point Of Cantor’s Defeat:

It was the attempts by the Cantor team and other establishment Republicans in Virginia to bully, exclude and defeat grassroots conservatives in his district and elsewhere that made his defeat essential to send a message to Washington,” conservative Virginia activist and writer Mark FitzGibbons told TheDC.

Seems that Republican Party participants use a tactic called "slating" to try to get control of the nominating mechanism in Virginia. Slating -- it sounds like a throw back to Reconstruction days -- is when a large number of people agree in advance on a list of names of people they want to represent them in a convention. When that group votes and they are the majority, their slate wins.

Cantor's group did it and won the first time. But he ticked off a lot of people, so when conservatives and Tea Party activists went to work they had an easy time getting out the vote.

So amnesty was only part of the problem. Cantor dissed his constituents, tried to stack the deck, and ultimately lost the vote.

April 29, 2014

The other day the Midland Reporter Telegram (MRT.com) had it's own Pauline Kael moment in an editorial about the bulging bond debt that burdens the residents of the county and city of Midland, Texas. The bond debt is huge, no question about that. Texas Comptroller Susan Combs has done a great job of opening voters' eyes, although so far it hasn't had much of an effect.

The bond debt issue is one we have put out there for our readers, usually to the sound of crickets.

They don't know anyone who is concerned about the debt. Poor Pauline Kael suffered the same condition. She's the New Yorker film critic who said after Richard Nixon won the presidential election, “I can’t believe Nixon won. I don’t know anyone who voted for him.” (See this for the actual quote.)

Much like Pauline Kael's rather special world, the MRT brass' special world is one in which no one is concerned about the mountain of debt created by the local taxing entities. Their world is inhabited by the folks who promote, not oppose, the bond proposals. See, for example, how they heap praise on them.

If they could step out of their cloistered world they might hear a different side. Captain Watchdog Jason Moore could give them an earful. Currently, a small group of people who really want a bond passed can get it passed with a tiny percent of the registered voters in an election with a light turnout. Moore made an excellent suggestion that bond proposals shouldn't be allowed to pass unless a certain percentage of registered voters vote for it. He hears more than crickets when he speaks.

Charles Murray was right. We congregate with like minded people. There's nothing wrong with that unless you're trying to lecture people outside your circle.

April 10, 2014

The A-10, the venerable old low flying war bird is hard to shoot down with conventional firepower. But budget power is something else.

The A-10 is still headed for the scrap yard. However, a small contingent of Senators, Ayotte, McCain, and Chambliss, are making a good case for keeping the Warthog. They cite an incident in Afghanistan last July, to wit:

At one point during the two hour fire fight, enemy forces were close enough to engage the soldiers with grenades and helicopters could not be called in to evacuate the injured. When the A-10 arrived on the scene, it flew 75 feet above the enemy position, conducted 15 gun passes within 50 meters of friendly ground forces, and used its famous 30 millimeter nose cannon to fire 2,300 rounds.

The performance of the A-10 that day saved the lives of 60 Americans.

Those planes can take a lot of punishment and keep on going. See these photos, for proof.

The airplanes didn't bring it down, it was beauty brought it down. OK, the "King Kong" line doesn't work exactly right. But substitute "politicians" for "beauty" and it makes more sense.